This Little Piggie Went To Market...

One of the terms that (U.S.) people tend to use a lot here in Tajikistan is "culture shock".

While there are a LOT of things that are considerably different here vs. the U.S., I don't think that we will experience actual culture shock while living here.  Partly due to our attitude about what we expected to experience while living here, partly due to the fact that we have traveled fairly extensively over the past 20 years.

One of the things that is taking some getting used to is shopping.  Shopping is a little different in Dushanbe because they still use the old-style bazaar for most of their goods.
Of course there's the individual shop that has clothes, electronics, etc., however, for most of the shopping, they still rely on the tried-and-true bazaar.


Here are some pictures of the largest bazaar in the city (the Green Market).

Bread anyone?

Non-food items. Can't wait to see what this is like during the winter. 

There's actually very little variety of produce available.

When it's 93F (33.8C) outside & you have the same stuff as 50 other vendors, you might as well get a nap in. 

Sliced carrots. There's actually a few stalls that only sell sliced carrots...

This is a very large place. 

I only know this is some form of dairy product. I can't bring myself to get closer because of the look (it's pretty gelatinous) and you can smell it from about 8 feet away. 

Tajik brooms. One thing I can't grasp is the fact that all the brooms I've seen are 3' tall. Everyone has to bend over to use a broom - bad ergonomics. 

Beans, seeds, & nuts. There are a few stalls with spices, but there only seems to be about 6-8 varieties of spices, nothing like most people envision at an outdoor bazaar. 

Vegetables are fresh. It was nice to learn how to say "half kilogram" in Russian so we didn't have to buy as much. 

Dushanbe is becoming more Westernized and new places are opening all the time that are modeled after other countries, (a couple of weeks ago a new grocery store opened and I went in and wandered around because it was so much like a U.S. grocery store), but it also took me looking at 13 different electronics shops to find a wireless Microsoft mouse!